Free EMR Newsletter Want to receive the latest news on EMR, Meaningful Use,
ARRA and Healthcare IT sent straight to your email? Join thousands of healthcare pros who subscribe to EMR and HIPAA for FREE!!

Email Address:

We never sell or give out your contact information.
We respect our readers' privacy.

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 10 blogs containing over 8000 articles with John having written over 4000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 16 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John is co-founder of InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and LinkedIn.

I know that a number of readers don’t celebrate Christmas, but I do and I love this time of year. A lot of people get annoyed by the hustle and bustle of Christmas and the need to get a gift for someone else. I love all the activity and the opportunity to spend time thinking about someone else. That’s a beautiful thing and something we need more of in this world.

I hope you have a happy holiday season whether you celebrate Christmas or not. Thanks for reading and supporting us at Healthcare Scene.

Share this:

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 10 blogs containing over 8000 articles with John having written over 4000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 16 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog. John is co-founder of InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit and LinkedIn.

I was recently playing ultimate frisbee and a pharmacist from out of town came to play with us since they were in Las Vegas attending a conference. After a bit of discussion he learned that I was a healthcare IT blogger and so we had a short discussion about the benefits of technology in healthcare. During our discussion he said the following that really hit me:

“Carbon copy… it’s a nightmare.” -Pharmacist

That’s right. One of the hospitals that sends him prescriptions still uses carbon copy to write their prescriptions. The pharmacist then went on to tell me, “If you think reading handwriting is hard to read, try reading it through double carbon copy.”

For many of us, including myself, Christmas is just around the corner. We’ll be spending time with family and friends. We’ll give and get presents. We’ll eat Christmas cookies. We’ll sing Christmas songs. The break can be an extremely enjoyable time for many. However, so many of us (yes, that includes me) just take it for granted.

I think that’s kind of like the benefits technology can and has provided healthcare. How much easier is it to find a chart in an EHR? How much easier is it to read typed out notes versus the hieroglyphics that some doctors called handwriting? How much easier is it to print 2 prescriptions or just ePrescribe a prescription than to use a double carbon copy? I could go on and on, but you get the point.

Both in healthcare IT and in life, we often take so many things for granted once they become a constant in our lives. This holiday weekend I’m planning to slow down, breathe deeply, and appreciate the good things in life. There are many regardless of your situation or circumstances. Taking a little time to remember will help us not forget all the things we have to be grateful for in this world. Let’s put aside our challenges this weekend and pick them back up on Monday.

Happy Holidays to everyone! Thanks for always helping me to remember all the incredible things in my life.

Free EMR Newsletter Want to receive the latest news on EMR, Meaningful Use,
ARRA and Healthcare IT sent straight to your email? Join thousands of healthcare pros who subscribe to EMR and HIPAA for FREE!

Email Address:

We never sell or give out your contact information. We respect our readers' privacy.